


You And Me Even When It Didn't Have To Be

by ThereIsNoTragedyInThat



Series: Somewhere Between Kansas and the Open Road [9]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Drabble, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Good Parent John Winchester, M/M, Protective Dean Winchester, Protective John Winchester, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23804290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereIsNoTragedyInThat/pseuds/ThereIsNoTragedyInThat
Summary: Sam and Dean have been sharing a bed since they were children, even when they didn't have to.Dean/Sam Bingo Fill I3: Bedsharing
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Series: Somewhere Between Kansas and the Open Road [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698406
Comments: 3
Kudos: 102
Collections: Dean and Sam Bingo





	You And Me Even When It Didn't Have To Be

Two beds. From the time they were children they always got two beds. Sometimes, he and Dean would share one while their father slept in the other, though as they got older, it had morphed into two rooms. More expensive which was made up for by stopping in crappier motels whose stay was even cheaper. Hardly an inconvenience.

Sam could still remember with startling clarity the first time they’d gotten two separate rooms, how their father had looked at Dean with a firmness that bordered on harsh as he laid out instructions, as though Dean hadn’t done everything he was saying every time their dad had left for an extended hunt.

Lock the doors and windows. Salt the perimeter. Recite his cell phone number. Check the safety on the shot gun. Keep the knife under your pillow. Don’t stay up past ten. Keep an eye on Sammy. You get the bed closest to the door. Scream and I’ll hear it. Wait for the signal before opening the door to anyone.

Dean hadn’t protested, just stood there silently and nodded with each direction. Waiting and willing while Sam laid in bed, sleepy but restless. It wasn’t something he had considered then, but Sam realized where his father’s abruptness came from now, knew that the glint in his eye wasn’t annoyance but fear at leaving his sons alone. Sure, the room next door was hardly as bad as leaving them for a lengthy hunt, at least not to them at the time. In actuality it was worse. The hunt offered a distraction because he was out saving lives and killing things that would attack his children. Being next door and having something happen came with a wild kind of helplessness that would have broken their father if they’d ever actually been attacked.

Still Sam remembered his dad pressing a brief kiss to his head before leaving the room with a quiet goodnight to Dean and then they were alone. There had been something nerve-wracking about it because the entire point of their father getting another room was so they wouldn’t have to share the bed…but their dad didn’t know that even while he was away on hunts, they shared a bed anyway.

Sam had watched from his place on the bed as Dean checked the locks and completed the salt lines by the openings and without another words, stripped out of his shirt, went to the other bed and peeled back the covers. Sam’s stomach had twisted with discomfort, hated the idea being alone in this bed. Except he shouldn’t have worried because Dean leaned over and messed up the cover and pillows before spinning on his heel with a smile and crawling into Sam’s bed with him. They hadn’t needed to say a word. Had simply curled up together content and safe, before drifting off to a peaceful sleep.

Today, all these years later, and they hadn’t changed.

Sure, Sam had gone away to Stanford and there had been nights when wounds both real and emotional were to raw to be that close but in the end, they always found their way back to each other. The bunker had been the real test, all the room in the world to stretch out and space to claim as their own…yet when the night would draw to close and their dinner was finished they found themselves inevitably stumbling toward one room and one bed again and again like a net being cast and drawing them close.

Like now, Sam was curled onto the right side of the bed, Dean on the left, always closest to the door as was drilled into him as a child. They wore only their boxers and T-shirts and already sweat was glistening on Sam’s brow from their bodies overheating. Dean had taken to turning up the archaic air conditioner so they could sleep comfortably wrapped in each other’s arms.

They were old enough now to understand why they could hardly sleep without the other close by anymore. Sam knew that Dean’s one and only goal in life was to see him safe and sound. Ideally, he would be happy too and thriving in whatever life they ended up in. Had heard countless times from his brother’s lips that very thing. On some level, sleeping in each other’s arms had become a given. Between their father’s demands for Dean to look out for him at all costs and Dean’s own inherent protective instinct, it made sense that he’d sleep best with Sam in his arms, easily defended in the night when they were at their most vulnerable.

For Sam’s own part…well he liked having his big brother there, next to him, holding him, reassuring him. As a teenager Sam had gone through bouts of pride that made him itch to prove himself as someone who didn’t need protecting and soft handling, much to his brother’s chagrin and his father’s approval, but this never changed. At night Dean was vulnerable, especially with their dad in another room, he would indulge by petting at Sam’s hair or simply running his hands over his back and at other times…resting a careful hand over recent injuries. He was more willing to talk about anything and everything that Sam wanted to and would often fall asleep mid argument or rebuttal.

An intimacy they had both missed as children they found in each other.

Sam wouldn’t change it for anything, more than happy to curl up around his brother after long hunts and tired days. They still got motel rooms with two beds, even if the other would lay untouched save for their bags and storage. Even on occasions when one of them was brutally injured, they’d lay together, a sliver of space between them and one hand bridging the gap.

They didn’t talk as much as they used to. There were less words to say living in each other’s pockets and experiencing day to day life together. Sometimes, Sam would read aloud from one of the Men of Letter’s books and watch from the corner of his eye as his brother went out like a light or sometimes, they’d watch a show and Sam would fall asleep listening to his brother rant about the characters or plot with a smile on his face.

Sam wouldn’t want it any other way.


End file.
